Coronavirus Discourses: Linguistic Evidence For Effective Public Health Messaging
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Nottingham
Department Name: School of English
Abstract
Developed in partnership with Public Health England, Public Health Wales and NHS Education for Scotland, this bid addresses key challenges that the coronavirus pandemic presents in relation to understanding the flow and impact of public health messages as reflected in public and private discourses. Our collaborators above who are charged with constructing effective public health messages have identified two particular challenges: messaging around geographical borders (e.g. between England and Wales, and in local lockdowns) and messaging aimed at BAME populations. These areas will be the focus of our research, and we will deliver benefits to our collaborators in the form of initial analytical results and discussion from month 2 onwards.
As human behaviour is shaped by the reception and production of discourse, and by the reasoning about different sources of information, we propose a new approach to track the trajectories of public health messages once they are released to the public. Moving beyond corpus linguistic approaches that focus on language production, we will investigate the complex relationship between the production and the reception of discourses relating to specific types of public health messages, focusing on linguistic patterns (in particular modality and stance markers). Drawing on our track record in the construction and analysis of heterogenous corpora and our ongoing work on privacy enhancing technologies, we propose to carry out the first large scale analysis of the trajectories of public health messages relating to the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.
As human behaviour is shaped by the reception and production of discourse, and by the reasoning about different sources of information, we propose a new approach to track the trajectories of public health messages once they are released to the public. Moving beyond corpus linguistic approaches that focus on language production, we will investigate the complex relationship between the production and the reception of discourses relating to specific types of public health messages, focusing on linguistic patterns (in particular modality and stance markers). Drawing on our track record in the construction and analysis of heterogenous corpora and our ongoing work on privacy enhancing technologies, we propose to carry out the first large scale analysis of the trajectories of public health messages relating to the coronavirus pandemic in the UK.
Publications
McClaughlin E
(2021)
Introduction to the Coronavirus Discourses project
McClaughlin E
(2023)
The reception of public health messages during the COVID-19 pandemic.
in Applied Corpus Linguistics
| Description | The Coronavirus Discourses project addressed key challenges presented by the Coronavirus pandemic in relation to understanding the flow and impact of public health messages in public and private communications. The project used a linguistic approach to examine the reception, persuasiveness, and inclusivity of Coronavirus public health messaging. Feedback was provided to public health agencies (UK Health Security Agency, Public Health Wales, and NHS Education for Scotland) in real time as the pandemic progressed. The research found that a tailored approach to public health messaging is most effective. Messaging should acknowledge individual differences, the social values of different communities, and audience diversity. Age was the most important indicator of compliance with health messaging. Overall, messaging that encourages personal responsibility without promoting guilt or fear as motivations for compliance with health measures are most engaging. Community-specific engagement at all stages of the conception, design, and evaluation of a messaging campaign is essential for gathering feedback in real time. We developed a set of guiding principles for carrying out linguistic research in a way that preserves the privacy of those contributing the data. A linguistic approach ensures that feedback can be gathered efficiently on a scale that is meaningful for public health agencies and collaborative partnerships with the public will increase trust in the message source and improve the accessibility and effectiveness of public health messaging. A set of guidelines for message writers is available on the project website https://c19comms.wp.horizon.ac.uk |
| Exploitation Route | Healthcare (message writers): A set of guidelines for message writers contains the full findings and recommendations for public health message development has been shared with project partners and their networks. Implementation of these findings can be taken forward in the development of future public health messaging to support positive health outcomes for different communities (through the promotion of health seeking behaviours etc.). These guidelines will also be made more widely available via our project website: https://c19comms.wp.horizon.ac.uk Software/academic: The browser plug-in for privacy preserving corpus linguistics is available online (https://github.com/horizon-institute/PriPA) and is being developed for further research into privacy-preserving detection of online misinformation by academics at the University of Nottingham. This can also be accessed and developed by software engineers. Academic: Partnerships developed through this award have been taken forward into new health communications research and new partnerships have been developed as part of a larger grant application for a Centre for Inclusive Health Communication (overall 22 public, private and third sector partners) |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) Healthcare |
| URL | https://c19comms.wp.horizon.ac.uk |
| Description | We have used our research to inform the evaluation of a pan-London immunisation campaign developed by NHS England, working in partnership with UKHSA. We have further demonstrated our approaches developed as part of this grant to analyse free text responses of a maternity services survey carried out by the Patient Information Forum (PIF). We have received Follow-on-Funding from AHRC to continue our work on the pan-London immunisation campaign mentioned above: Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC): - Enhancing the value and wider benefit of research into Coronavirus Discourses: A Pan-London Immunisation Campaign (£ 98591; 2025 - 2026). |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | Advisory board membership: UKHSA public health campaign 'Why We Get Vaccinated' |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| Impact | This work has led to the launch of a London-wide (8.8m people) public health campaign in October 2024, which will run over the next three years. To date, this work has produced 59 campaign assets as part of the campaign toolkit including flyers, social media assets (images/ MP4s), large-scale advertisements for public transport, and videos. Evaluation of the campaign is underway in preparation for iterative revision and release of new campaign assets over three years. A new AHRC follow-on grant has been awarded for this work (see new grants). |
| URL | https://www.adph.org.uk/networks/london/resources/why-we-get-vaccinated-campaign-toolkit/ |
| Description | Corpus informed medical document review for EIDO Healthcare |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Impact | EIDO reported that this work 'improved the readability of the leaflets so much that we have decided to set up a formal partnership with [UoN]' to incorporate our approach across their library. Discussion to implement a formal KTP agreement is currently underway. |
| URL | https://www.eidohealthcare.com/ |
| Description | University of Nottingham Reproductive and Gynaecological Health Action Plan |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to new or improved professional practice |
| Description | Enhancing the value and wider benefit of research into Coronavirus Discourses: A Pan-London Immunisation Campaign |
| Amount | £98,591 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2025 |
| End | 03/2026 |
| Description | Menstrual Health Discourses |
| Amount | £12,386 (GBP) |
| Organisation | University of Nottingham |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2022 |
| End | 06/2022 |
| Description | UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) |
| Organisation | UK Health Security Agency |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | To date we have delivered information about using a corpus linguistic approach to extracting public perceptions about Covid-19 measures and vaccination to the UKHSA, as well as guidance on framing of public health messaging to maximise effectiveness and findings from research carried out on the Coronavirus Discourses project. We have established a formal data sharing agreement between the UKHSA and the University of Nottingham. We have collaborated to prepare a successful follow-on funding grant application for evaluation of a pan-London campaign set to run over three years. We have also provided linguistic expertise to analyse open text public survey data on attitudes towards influenza and MMR vaccines. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The UKHSA have provided valuable data, which has enhanced our insights into public perceptions on issues and concerns around vaccination. They have invited Svenja Adolphs and Emma McClaughlin to join an advisory board for a pan-London vaccination campaign and agreed to partner with us for follow-on funding (grant awarded, to begin April 2025). We will co-present at two conferences (one in public health and one in linguistics) in 2025, and hosted presentations to their team of public health communications professionals. |
| Impact | AHRC follow-on funding: Enhancing the value and wider benefit of research into Coronavirus Discourses: A Pan-London Immunisation Campaign |
| Start Year | 2021 |
| Title | PriPA |
| Description | The PriPA (Privacy Preserving Analytics) Extension is a digital tool designed for anyone to use on their personal computer. It safely retrieves information about individual language use for analysis. The advantage of this browser extension is that users have full control over what information they want to share. Research carried out on the Coronavirus Discourses project using the PriPA extension will improve understanding of the trajectories of public health messages. Our work will further inform our investigation of the reception and evaluation of public health messaging and related measures which are of key concerns to our project partners Public Health England, Public Health Wales, and NHS Education for Scotland. In the future, the PriPA extension can be used as the basis for other studies investigating a whole range of topics that would benefit from gathering insights from browsing activities and private communications in a privacy-preserving way. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | In the future, the PriPA extension can be used as the basis for other studies investigating a whole range of topics that would benefit from gathering insights from browsing activities and private communications in a privacy-preserving way. |
| URL | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pripa-extension/kcccmdfllakdocilcmbaldgmmniapmgc |
| Description | 'Scaremongering' or 'selfish'? Exploring the reception of public health messaging during the coronavirus pandemic in the UK |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation at the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) Conference, Belfast 2023 delivered by Emma McClaughlin. The audience were interested in our approach and findings and approached with further questions following the usual Q&A session. Feedback was posted on the Discourses of Dementia blog at Lancaster University following the conference: https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/public-discourses-of-dementia/2022/09/22/what-matters-in-applied-linguistics-and-who-determines-what-matters/ |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | 4th International Symposium on Applied Linguistics Research. Approaches to researching the reception of public health messaging: Lessons from the Coronavirus pandemic. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | McClaughlin, E. (2023, 4-5 November). Approaches to researching the reception of public health messaging: Lessons from the Coronavirus pandemic. 4th International Symposium on Applied Linguistics Research, Prince Sultan University Saudi Arabia. [Invited speaker]. Feedback from the Dean, College of Humanities and Science: 'On behalf of the Applied Linguistics Research Lab (ALLAB) at the College of Humanities and Sciences, Prince Sultan University, I extend sincere thanks and appreciation for your kind participation in the 4th International Symposium on Applied Linguistics Research (ALR2023), which was organized by ALLAB on Saturday and Sunday, November 4-5, 2023. Your talk entitled "Approaches to Researching the Reception of Public Health Messaging: Lessons from the Coronavirus Pandemic" was extremely informative, enlightening, and inspiring, and was thus very well-received by the audience. Indeed, the speech constituted a valuable addition to the symposium. I thank you once more for your distinctive contribution to the ALR2023 success and look forward to further collaboration in the near future.' Report of the event published in language teaching summarises the talk: doi:10.1017/S0261444823000460 'Next was a talk by Dr. Emma McClaughlin (University of Nottingham, UK), where insights from a study of UK Coronavirus messaging were discussed, underlining the value of responsible research approaches to practitioners communicating health threats to the public.' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Advances in Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Online Communication Data for Health Message Designers: Coronavirus Discourses in the UK (July 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Nichele, E., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., McClaughlin, E., Clos, J., McAuley, D., Barnard, P., & Lang, A. Advances in Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Online Communication Data for Health Message Designers: Coronavirus Discourses in the UK. Presented at the 20th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET 2022). Online from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. 15th July 2022. The presentation was delivered by Elena Nichele, who received positive feedback after the presentation. One message said: "I'm really interested in seeing the results you referred to around what type of messages provoke what type of responses. On the ground, I construct health messaging and would really like to use what you've learned in your research and apply it in my messaging." Another attendee wrote: "I am very excited to hear what the Notts team is doing". Several attendees asked for the project website, as they were interested in reading outputs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Advances in Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Online Communication Data for Health Message Designers: Coronavirus Discourses in the UK. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Nichele, E., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., McClaughlin, E., Clos, J., McAuley, D., Barnard, P., & Lang, A. Advances in Privacy-Preserving Analysis of Online Communication Data for Health Message Designers: Coronavirus Discourses in the UK. Presented at the 20th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET 2022). Online from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. 15th July 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.polyu.edu.hk/engl/event/COMET2022/index/ |
| Description | Applied Linguistics for Hearing Aid Research and Development (Sonova) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Talk delivered to Sonova: Applied Linguistics for Hearing Aid Research and Development. Discussion centred on on how the approach can contribute to ameliorate hearing impairment and health care. Focus on four main applications: assessment of hearing loss; health literacy, hearing loss and hearing aids use; and collecting and managing customer feedback in a transparent and privacy preserving manner, and facilitating processing optimisation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Borders in coronavirus discourses: feedback on UK public health messages from readers of online news presentation (March 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | McClaughlin, E., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., Nichele, E., Barnard, P., Clos, J., Lang, A., & McAuley, D. Borders in coronavirus discourses: feedback on UK public health messages from readers of online news. Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Pittsburgh, USA. 22nd March 2022. Interest has been shown by a few attendees who asked questions both in the Q&A session and after the talk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Borders in coronavirus discourses: feedback on UK public health messages from readers of online news. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | McClaughlin, E., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., Nichele, E., Barnard, P., Clos, J., Lang, A., & McAuley, D. Borders in coronavirus discourses: feedback on UK public health messages from readers of online news. Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Pittsburgh, USA. 22nd March 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.aaal.org/events/2022-aaal-conference |
| Description | C19Comms Twitter account |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | C19Comms Twitter account, which has over 60 followers actively engaging with the content posted. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://t.co/B8QXT2OFx6 |
| Description | C19Comms website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | C19Comms Coronavirus Discourses project website, which has been asked about by several conference attendees (at the different events, where team members presented) as a source of further information about the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://c19comms.wp.horizon.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Coronavirus Discourses Advisory Group |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An Advisory Group was selected at the beginning of the project and has continued to input to the design of studies and activity. Group members reported increased recognition of points raised during meetings and contributed towards plans future activity. Some members showed an interest in joining other PIP groups/new projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.horizon.ac.uk/project/coronavirus-discourses-linguistic-evidence-for-effective-public-he... |
| Description | Coronavirus Discourses final blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The blog provided an overview of the project and included information on findings |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.horizon.ac.uk/coronavirus-discourses-evaluation-event-and-final-blog/ |
| Description | Coronavirus Discourses: linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | A project website was created to support raising awareness and dissemination activity. Other outputs (Reports) form this project have been published on the website to make them freely available to a wide audience. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://c19comms.wp.horizon.ac.uk/ |
| Description | Corpus Linguistics for Healthcare Communications. Thrive Agency, 18th November 2021. Interactive workshop for professionals. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Corpus Linguistics for Healthcare Communications. Thrive Agency, 18th November 2021. Interactive workshop for professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Corpus applications in Healthcare Settings. Public Health Wales, 1st December 2021. Training session for professionals. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Corpus applications in Healthcare Settings. Public Health Wales, 1st December 2021. Training session for professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Corpus linguistics optimised management of community feedback -- Patient Information Forum maternity survey demo |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Corpus linguistics optimised management of community feedback. Presentation demonstrating the value of a corpus-assisted discourse analytical approach to analysis of open text responses to a survey on maternity healthcare experiences for Patient Information Forum (PIF), the UK membership organisation and network for people working in health information and support. PIF also run the only UK-wide quality mark for health information - the PIF TICK. Presenters Emma McClaughlin, Sara Vilar-Lluch, Svenja Adolphs The slides have subsequently been presented by the Director of PIF (Sophie Randall) at PIF training and events. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Health Inequalities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Populations: Insights from the Coronavirus Discourses Project (September 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | McClaughlin, E., Nichele, E., Adolphs, S., Barnard, P., Clos, J., Knight, D., McAuley, D., & Lang, A. Health Inequalities and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Populations: Insights from the Coronavirus Discourses Project. Presented at the Public Health Wales Research and Evaluation Conference 2021. Online. 23rd September 2021. The presented poster was awarded the "Best use of innovative methods Prize". |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Information sheet: Knowledge Empowers - The impact of credible health information |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Information sheet 'Knowledge Empowers - The impact of credible health information' presenting the key points from the webinar presentation delivered by Emma McClaughlin 'I am not alone': A qualitative survey of the impact of patient support groups using corpus linguistics. The information sheet, co-authored by the Patient Information Forum and the University of Nottingham, was published in February 2025 and distributed via the Patient Information Forum's newsletter (to 230 partners) and on social media. Requests for further information about the corpus analysis approach have been made on LinkedIn. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://pifonline.org.uk/resources/knowledge-is-power/ |
| Description | Live workshop - Coronavirus Discourses: linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Knowledge-exchange workshop: Pandemic and Beyond - Public Health, Communication and Healthcare Presentation delivered at the Public Health, Communication and Healthcare Knowledge Exchange workshop held by the Pandemic and Beyond project at Exeter University (bringing together 72 Covid-19 AHRC projects under the same umbrella). We presented an overview of the Coronavirus Discourses project during the workshop which was an opportunity to connect with other AHRC Covid-19 research teams working in adjacent areas. The workshop facilitated knowledge exchange and collaboration between teams, leading to strengthened communication and impact strategies that will benefit individual project teams as well as ultimately boosting the profile of Arts and Humanities research, and its vital role in Covid-19 response and recovery. This workshop brought together projects from two subgroups - Media, Communication and Public Health Messaging, and Healthcare and Managing Covid-19. Projects within the first group had strong connections in a focus on public health messaging, journalism, and the media, and were connected by an interest in how information and misinformation about the pandemic is spread. There was also a strong interest in communication in the second group, especially between healthcare services and those who use them. Projects in this group have strong links in a focus on design, and on examining issues impacting healthcare professionals and the NHS. Information about the projects in the group can be found below. In this workshop, we had the opportunity to present our project and hear about other related projects; think about and share strategies for effective ways of engaging with different communities and stakeholders to effect change and create impact; think about and share strategies for effective, innovative and creative ways of communicating research; informally connect and network with other researchers; and feedback and provide input into the ongoing work of the Pandemic and Beyond team. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Patient Information Forum webinar: Tackling health misinformation and understanding health literacy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Following demonstration of an analysis approach developed during Coronavirus Discourses, Emma McClaughlin was invited to present at the Patient Information Forum's (PIF) webinar 'Tackling health misinformation and understanding health literacy 'on 23 Jan 2025 The presentation was entitled 'I am not alone' A qualitative survey of the impact of patient support groups using corpus linguistics (January 2025). An audience of 300 third sector and health communications practitioners attended and the webinar is available online. Requests for further information about the nature of the data and the corpus linguistics approach was made both on the day and via social media later. We were invited to co-author an information sheet with PIF following the webinar (Knowledge Empowers - The impact of credible health information https://pifonline.org.uk/resources/knowledge-empowers/) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://pifonline.org.uk/resources/webinar-tackling-health-misinformation-and-understanding-health-l... |
| Description | Patient Information Forum: Taking a corpus approach to analysing open text survey results |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | After a formal data sharing agreement was put in place with the Patient Information Forum, open text responses from a survey on trustworthy and valued health information were analysed and presented to practitioners at the organisation to showcase taking a corpus approach to analysing open text survey results in a way that is relevant to the organisation. This led to an invitation to present at a webinar: Tackling health misinformation and understanding health literacy on 23 Jan 2025. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Pepi Barnard, Research Associate presentation at AAAL2022 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Pepi attended the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference (AAAL2022) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whilst on a networking tour of USA promoting the work of both Horizon and the TAS Hub. She presented a paper on March 21st for the Coronavirus Discourses project (C19COMMS). The paper, titled "Public Health Messaging for At-risk Populations: a UK-based case study", was very well received and her talk generated a great deal of discussion and interest from other researchers, including interest to collaborate in the future. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.aaal.org/events/2022-aaal-conference |
| Description | Personalisation of Health Information presentation at Patient Information Forum member webinar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Personalisation of Health Information: Using AI to personalise the language used in health information contexts to meet the needs and preferences of different audiences Talk delivered to attendees of Patient Information Forum's (PIF) Personalisation of Health Information (Patient Information Forum) member webinar: AI in Health information. Over 100 of PIF's member organisations attended. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Presentation reported in Public Discourses of Dementia Blog |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Write-up by audience member in attendance at Emma McClaughlin's conference presentation at the British Association of Applied Linguistics Conference, Belfast 2022. Published by Lancaster University, Discourses of Dementia blog |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/public-discourses-of-dementia/2022/09/22/what-matters-in-applied-linguistics-... |
| Description | Presentation: Approaches to analysing textual data: Corpus linguistics for veterinary sciences |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk delivered to veterinarians, academics and vet students at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Sciences at the University of Nottingham as part of their seminar series. The audience included veterinarians, academics, students in person and via teams link. Presentation delivered by Emma McClaughlin and Sara Vilar-Lluch. Presentation content included corpus linguistics methods and applications, followed by Coronavirus Discourses project findings as an illustrative case study. Follow up questions included: how to apply the methods to their own data and requests for further information on findings, which were relevant to their work on tackling vaccine hesitancy in owners of companion animals. The audience were also signposted to the project website for final report (guide for message writers), academic papers and other outputs. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Press release: Using linguistics to improve the accessibility and awareness of new vaccination campaign |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | A press release was issued by The University of Nottingham in October 2024: Using linguistics to improve the accessibility and awareness of new vaccination campaign. It communicated the linguistics expertise contributed by Svenja Adolphs, Emma McClaughlin, and Sara Vilar-Lluch on the UKHSA's multi-agency campaign to tailor health communications and improve the accessibility of immunisation communications. The campaign, which launched across London on Monday 7 October 2024, aims to help raise awareness about the importance of vaccinations - particularly within communities where vaccine uptake is lower - and create space for open conversations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/linguistics-improve-accessibility-of-new-vaccination-campaign |
| Description | PriPA: a tool for privacy-preserving analytics of linguistic data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Clos, J., Adolphs, S., McClaughlin, E., Barnard, P., Nichele, E., Knight, D., & McAuley, D. PriPA: a tool for privacy-preserving analytics of linguistic data. Presented at: Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Language Technologies 2022. Marseille, France. 24th June 2022 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://legal2022.mobileds.de/ |
| Description | PriPA: a tool for privacy-preserving analytics of linguistic data presentation (June 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Clos, J., Adolphs, S. McClaughlin, E., Barnard, P., Nichele, E., Knight, D., & McAuley, D. (2022). PriPA: a tool for privacy-preserving analytics of linguistic data. Presented at: Legal and Ethical Issues in Human Language Technologies 2022. Marseille, France. 24th June 2022. Proceedings available online shortly. A few attendees asked questions about the presentation after the talk |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public Health Wales Research & Evaluation Conference presentation: Developing effective communications to promote vaccination: insights from COVID-19 message production and reception. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Vilar-Lluch, S., McClaughlin, E., Knight, D., Adolphs, S., Barnard, P., Clos, J., McAuley, D., Nichele, E., Lang, A. (2023, 7 December). Developing effective communications to promote vaccination: insights from COVID-19 message production and reception. Public Health Wales Research & Evaluation Conference. Cardiff, UK. 33 audience members present. Presentation delivered by Sara Vilar-Lluch, interactive session ran by Sara Vilar-Lluch and Emma McClaughlin. Requests for further information about developing and delivering messaging for public vaccine campaigns. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel: Communicating Research with the Public (18th November 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel: Communicating Research with the Public (18th November 2021). 14 people (PIP members and researchers) attended the meeting. They demonstrated interest in the work by getting actively involved in the discussion and asking for further information to computer scientists about the tool. Some of the PIP members also agreed to test the tool. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel: Privacy Preserving Corpus Linguistic Analysis for COVID-19 (9th June 22) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel: Privacy Preserving Corpus Linguistic Analysis for COVID-19 (9th June 22). 14 people (PIP members and researchers) attended the meeting. They demonstrated interest in the work by asking about the recent conference presentations delivered at the American Association of Applied Linguistics. They also commented that the tool about to be designed was useful. One PIP member wrote: "This discussion has been very engaging and I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the policy making process! :)" |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel: Privacy-preserving technologies (27th January 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel: Privacy-preserving technologies (27th January 2022). 14 people (PIP members and researchers) attended the meeting. PIP members showed interest and engagement in the work through their comments and direct involvement in the activities proposed during the meeting. This included a Jamboard activity about effective messages they said they especially enjoyed and appreciated. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel: Public Health Messaging (27th July 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel: Public Health Messaging (27th July 2021). PIP members discussed how they interpreted and how clear they found different health messages. They showed their interest by actively participating in the discussion and responding to further information requests (completing a task). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel:1st C19Comms (8th June 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel:1st C19Comms PIP meeting (8th June 2021). 14 people (PIP members and researchers) attended the meeting. The discussion was defined enjoyable by several of the PIP members. This motivated them to take part in the following meetings. One of the PIP members wrote "very interesting and pleased to meet you all" at the conclusion of the meeting. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Public Involvement Panel:2nd C19Comms PIP meeting (29th June 2021) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Public Involvement Panel: 2nd C19Comms PIP meeting (29th June 2021). 17 people attended the meeting (PIP members and researchers) and declared interest in being involved in the project further. One participant said that "The June report was really good as a feedback mechanism [...] I really, really liked it [...]. PIP members were interested in seeing our output and results. One PIP member wrote they had enjoyed the discussion. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Public health messaging for at-risk populations: a UK-based case study presentation (March 2022) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Barnard, P., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., McClaughlin, E., Nichele, E., Lang, A., Clos, J., McAuley D. Public health messaging for at-risk populations: a UK-based case study. Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Pittsburgh, USA. 21st March 2022. Interest has been shown by a few attendees who asked questions both in the Q&A session and after the talk. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Public health messaging for at-risk populations: a UK-based case study. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Barnard, P., Adolphs, S., Knight, D., McClaughlin, E., Nichele, E., Lang, A., Clos, J., & McAuley, D. Public health messaging for at-risk populations: a UK-based case study. Presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics Conference. Pittsburgh, USA. 21st March 2022. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.aaal.org/events/2022-aaal-conference |
| Description | UKHSA Conference presentation. Supporting pandemic preparedness through effective public health messaging: lessons from the Coronavirus pandemic. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Adolphs, S., McClaughlin, E., Vilar-Lluch, S., Knight, D., Clos, J., Nichele, E., McAuley, D., Barnard, P., Lang, A. (2023, 15-16 November). Supporting pandemic preparedness through effective public health messaging: lessons from the Coronavirus pandemic. UK Health Security Agency Conference 2023. Presentation delivered by Svenja Adolphs. More than 500 people present. 20 copies of the Coronavirus Discourses final report issued to audience members with a professional interest in public health communciation. Requests for future collaboration received following the conference. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | UKHSA behavioural science presentation: Linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation to behavioural science professionals at the UK Health Security Agency disseminated linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging based on findings and approaches developed in the Coronavirus Discourses project. The presentation led to further requests for information about the approach and an invitation to present to multiple agencies at the UKHSA. The UKHSA behavioural science department has since become a partner on follow-on funding as part of the Why We Get Vaccinated Campaign evaluation work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | UKHSA presentation: Corpus linguistic approaches to analysing open text survey responses: 'Why we get vaccinated' |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Following the establishment of a formal data sharing agreement with the UK Health Security Agency, open text responses from a survey of public perspectives on vaccination vaccine were analysed and presented to practitioners at the organisation to showcase taking a corpus approach to analysing open text survey results (developed during Coronavirus Discourses) in a way that is relevant to the organisation. This work fed into the development of a follow-on funding bid to evaluate the 'Why We Get Vaccinated campaign, which includes a further public survey to be analysed using the same approach (Enhancing the value and wider benefit of research into Coronavirus Discourses: A Pan-London Immunisation Campaign -- grant successful, to begin April 2025). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Using linguistics to improve the accessibility and awareness of new vaccination campaign |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Press release from the University of Nottingham 14th October 2024 communicating involvement from Svenja Adolphs, Emma McClaughlin, Sara Vilar-Lluch on a multi-agency campaign to tailor health communications and improve the accessibility of immunisation communications in London. The 'Why We Get Vaccinated' campaign, which launched across London on Monday 7 October 2024, is aiming to help raise awareness about the importance of vaccinations - particularly within communities where vaccine uptake is lower - and create space for open conversations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/linguistics-improve-accessibility-of-new-vaccination-campaign |
| Description | Video-recorded presentation - Community-focused approaches: linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Delivery of the presentation: Community-focused approaches: linguistic evidence for effective public health messaging during the Covid-19 pandemic. Dissemination of findings from the Coronavirus Discourse project at a dedicated research and development conference for public health professionals on the topic of 'where next for public health research?' |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://healthandcareresearchwales.org/about/events/public-health-wales-research-and-evaluation-conf... |